Euanthe

Discovery

Euanthe was discovered on Dec. 11, 2001 by Scott S. Sheppard, David C. Jewitt and Jan T. Kleyna at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii.

Overview

Euanthe is a member of the Ananke group, a family of Jovian satellites which have similar orbits and are therefore thought to have a common origin. The group probably began as an asteroid that was captured by Jupiter's gravity and then suffered a collision, which broke off a number of pieces. The largest remaining chunk was named "Ananke," and the smaller pieces became the other 15 moons in the Ananke group.

All of the Ananke moons are retrograde, which means that they orbit Jupiter in the opposite direction from the planet's rotation. Their orbits are also eccentric (elliptical rather than circular) and rather highly inclined with respect to Jupiter's equatorial plane. All of these characteristics support the idea that the Ananke satellites began as a captured asteroid, rather than forming as part of the original Jupiter system. None of the Ananke members is massive enough to pull itself into a sphere, so they are probably all irregularly shaped.

Euanthe has a mean radius of just under one mile (about 1.5 kilometers), assuming an albedo of 0.04. At a mean distance of about 13 million miles (21 million kilometers) from Jupiter, it takes about 620 Earth days to complete one orbit.

How Euanthe Got its Name

Originally called S/2001 J7, Euanthe was given one of the names in Greek mythology for the mother of the Graces by Zeus, the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter.

A name ending in "e" was chosen in accordance with the International Astronomical Union's policy for designating outer moons with retrograde orbits.​